


Arrival

by skyeward



Series: Forever [13]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Babies, F/F, Family Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5949598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyeward/pseuds/skyeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Directly after the events of Spawn, here comes baby Lawson!</p><p>Jack is gaining confidence, Miranda is forgetting how to talk, and everything goes better than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrival

Alexandra Lawson had arrived.

Miranda just sat there, frozen solid for several long seconds as Jack held the newborn to her chest and leaned back into Miranda, boneless with exhaustion.

Alexandra Lawson, their daughter, had arrived in the world, had been born, was currently alive and apparently healthy and _right there_. Tiny and wrinkled and red, but breathing peacefully.

“Babe,” Jack mumbled, stirring a bit and snuggling closer to her wife’s chest, “Cold...”

She snapped out of it at last, scooping up her wife and baby in one motion and carrying them over to the low, nest-like bed that took up one entire corner of the room. She settled Jack in first, then slipped in next to her and gathered the other woman to her chest once again so that the baby was nestled in the vee of their bodies, skin to skin to skin.

Miranda thought her heart might stop.

Jack shivered and nuzzled closer, and Miranda mentally shook herself. The blanket! She reached out blindly with one arm and found it being pressed into her hand, the huge quilt that had been Tali’s (bashfully presented) shower present to them. Draping it over the three of them resulted in a warm, dark cocoon that effectively blocked out the rest of the world – just the way they wanted it.

Outside, she heard the door open and shut – probably Doctor Chakwas leaving the little family to bond – but couldn’t be bothered to check. They had a baby.

A baby. Alexandra Lawson. Alexandra Maria Lawson. Their child, their baby, their responsibility. With ten tiny fingernails, hazy blue eyes, and a tuft of red-gold hair still matted to her head, she was perfect.

Miranda knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that the things she had to worry about had just doubled, minimum, but somehow she just didn’t care. She had her daughter, she had her wife, the rest of the world could fuck right off.

One hand against Alexandra’s tiny back, the other arm curled around Jack’s narrow shoulder, she dropped her head to pillow her cheek against Jack’s hair, closed her eyes, and just drifted to the rhythm of their breaths.

\- - - - - - - - - -

Pushing open the door to the makeshift VIP waiting area that had been set up for Jack’s delivery, Karin Chakwas didn’t pause a beat before delivering the news that everyone present had been waiting on for nearly twelve hours.

“She’s here, she’s healthy, and I have no bad news whatsoever to deliver. Everyone is resting peacefully.”

A tangible tension left the room, and the strained circle of faces began to show a smile here and there as the news sank in. The relief was more than welcome after nine months of sitting on pins and needles as what could only be described as an experimental pregnancy progressed. Not one of the experts the doctor had consulted had been able to give her any solid answer on how they expected Jack to do, and yet...

Well, perhaps they’d all been due something uncomplicatedly good. 

Then again, so had the people at the other end of the hospital in oncology, watching their loved ones waste away from entirely new forms of cancer in the wake of the war. She dropped into a nearby chair and let her head sag into her hands, rubbing her face as if she could scrub away the thought.

“Doctor Chakwas?”

She looked up and managed a smiled – tired, albeit, but a smile nonetheless – as Liara fluttered into view. 

“Doctor T’soni. Relax, they’re truly all right. I’m just tired, that’s all. It’s been a long-“ she paused to check the time on her omnitool, “Eighteen hours or so.”

“I can imagine...and I’m sure you’re eager to get some rest, I just wanted to ask about the-“

“The suppressor? Worked like a charm, my dear. I imagine it’s a bit weighty for use in the field, but for touchless suppression around here, it would be a delight.”

And that was no lie either. With anesthesia still hard to produce in reliable quality and quantity and more procedures being done with topicals to conserve what they did have, there had been more than one near-miss with physicians working on unrestrained biotics. The suppressor, if it had handled Jack’s flare-ups without issue, would solve a lot of problems.

“Good! Wonderful, I’m glad. It won’t work on asari, of course, but any species using amps for biotic projection should be effectively contained as long as you keep the amp itself inside the field. I’ll pass it onto the research and development teams.”

Once Liara wandered away to make a call, the others began drifting up in ones and twos for news or details. She gently reassured each of them, despite her own reserves running dangerously low, before eventually bowing out and returning to check on her patients. With the three of them still resting peacefully, she decided to find an on-call room and follow suite.  
\- - - - - - - - - -

Morning came slowly, with no great urgency. Jack, Miranda, and baby Alexandra had remained in their little nest the past couple hours, not moving except to allow the baby to nurse and to allow the adults to share some soft kisses and happy tears. The sun rose peacefully in the distance, shining over burnt-out husks and new construction alike, until it finally broke through the window and illuminated their bed with a soft, muffled glow.

Jack hummed quietly and yawned, looking down at the baby stirring on her chest and nosing around hungrily until, with a chuckle, Jack guided her to her goal.

“She sure eats a lot for something so little,” she commented wryly, then winced. “And enthusiastically, damn! As if the rest of my fun bits weren’t already torn to fucking shreds, I think the kid’s about to rip my nipple off. You sure there’s no teeth in there?” She tried to peer at the baby’s mouth, but it was hard to get a good angle.

“Positive,” Miranda replied dryly, stretching stiff muscles before rolling up onto her side to gaze lovingly at her wife and their new daughter. “Not for a few years at least.”

“Fuck, what do I know about newborns?” Jack drawled – not so dissimilar to her words the day before, but clearly in jest from the confident and relaxed way she held onto the infant. “They eat, they shit...that’s about it.”

“Language,” Miranda warned, although she couldn’t bring herself to put any real force behind it. “If her first word is a swear, I’m divorcing you.”

“Couldn’t if you tried,” Jack responded flippantly, reaching out with a free hand to tug back the blanket and let more light in. “Nobody else could ever handle either of us, so we’re stuck together.”

Struck by the sudden urge to preserve this last moment of peace, Miranda reached out to cup Jack’s cheek in one hand, drawing her wife down for a slow, soft kiss and to stare into her eyes for a few seconds.

“I love you, you know. More every day, and now more than ever.”

“Oh cut it out with the lines,” Jack laughed, but pressed her own hand over Miranda’s and kissed the other woman’s wrist. “I love you too, you sap. Now come on, I gotta pee like a fuckin’ racehorse and Ori isn’t gonna hang onto Eezo forever.”

Miranda made a sound that was half a laugh and half a resigned sigh. Jack would never change, but she liked it that way.

She tugged the blanket the rest of the way down and clambered awkwardly out of the sunken bed, not helped at all by Jack’s commentary on her naked backside, and then turned to take the baby. She knew better than to offer to help Jack, but this at least she could do. Jack hobbled over to the bathroom and, while Miranda struggled into her clothes with one hand, she heard the toilet flush and the shower start.

By the time she was dressed the shower had already turned off, and she poked her head out the door, catching a nurse’s eye. Within moments Doctor Chakwas had returned, accompanied by another doctor and a nurse, and the room turned into a small whirlwind of activity as mother and child were checked over, dressed, and given clean bills of health.

“Well,” Chakwas commented as she delivered Alexandra into Jack’s arms, “This has been a marvelous adventure into how much modern medicine doesn’t yet know about biotics, and I’m going to ask that you give me a while to recoup if you decide to do this again.”

“You got it, Doc. Now get me the h- uh, heck outta here!” 

“Your wish is my command.”

\- - - - - - - - - -

Back at their apartment, Miranda busied herself getting everything ready. She’d read all the articles, done all the research, found all the right products and herbs – anything she could get her hands on, anyway – and she was completely prepared for six to eight weeks of peaceful healing time.

Jack, on the other hand, seemed to have missed the memo. The first thing she did upon returning home was stretch out on the couch, flip on the television, and settle down to expose their infant to the wonders of Blasto.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Miranda said firmly, keying up her own omnitool to turn it off again.

“I am resting!” Jack protested, “What do you want me to do, just lay here and think about how much my, uh...junk...hurts?”

“I want you to get some sleep, Jack. It’s been a long...” Miranda checked her omnitool and groaned softly, “Seventeen hours, and no matter how tough you think you are, you’re going to crash sooner or later. I’d rather you did it in bed.”

Jack grumbled softly for a minute, pausing only to jog the baby a little when she started to fuss, and then finally gave a long, tired sigh.

“Fine. But you’re just lucky I’m so fucking tired that I’ll go along with this. And that there’s a TV in the bedroom. Now help me up, somebody exploded my downstairs with her giant spawn.”

“You do realize she’s actually on the small side, don’t you?” Miranda chuckled as she first took the baby and then carefully helped Jack to her feet and headed for the bedroom.

“...hey cheerleader?” Jack asked, leaning heavily on Miranda as they shuffled down the hall.

“Yes?”

“I’m not doing this again. We can adopt or whatever the hell you want, but if she’s small I’m not risking a big one. Got it?”

“Got it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I chose to give the baby the Lawson surname for a reason, which I'll probably go into in another story.


End file.
